Paradise Lost
by 3rdplanet
Summary: Following the murder of his best friend, Blaise Zabini is finding it increasingly hard to stay sane. Or alive. BZHG. Finally complete!
1. one

**One**

_god my god, where have you been?_

The boy's sharp breaths were the only audible noise in the chamber. It was a dimly lit basement room; dark and cold and somewhere in Northern Scotland, he really didn't know. The only things he knew were that he hurt, that he could feel the cold concrete against his cheek, and that he was dying. Of this last fact he especially had no doubt. He had always believed in God. He believed he would be saved. So now he prayed and prayed hoping that for once, just this last time, God might listen.

_i'm sorry i know this is late but please oh god oh god help me where are you i didn't want this i never wanted this. _

He coughed once and dark blood stained his hand like stigmata. He tried to focus away from the excruciating pain by observing the detail in which the blood lined the cracks of his palm, ironically dripping down his lifeline.

Suddenly the pain stopped. Just when he thought it would be over, when he could stand up and walk away, he looked up to see the cold sneer of Voldemort.

"You should have listened to your father, Theodore" were the only words spoken. Then, in a flash of green light, it was over.

---

Across the country, a quiet boy named Blaise Zabini woke up in a cold sweat. In an instant he knew that his best friend was dead.

* * *

lyrics where have you been by manchester orchestra 


	2. two

**Two  
**_i still feel you everywhere. _

_you told me was always been worth living. what's really worth living anymore?_

He didn't have to ask anyone, and nobody had to tell him. When he saw his mother the next morning she frowned sympathetically and told him it was an accident. No one knew what happened. An accident. His parents were devastated. There will be no funeral, it's too painful. He let her take him stiffly into her arms. He pretended to understand, to believe her.

He lied.

He told her she was going out to the garden. She smiled in a sad sort of way and touched her cold hand to his cheek briefly before elegantly turning away. Blaise walked toward the tree slowly. He wasn't in a daze. In fact he wasn't even shocked. He knew this would eventually happen. Theo had been terrified for months. His letters began arriving more and more frequently and each seemed more hurried, more frightened. Last week Theo had splinched himself apparating to Blaise's house at three in the morning. It was only his first two fingers on his left hand. Theo had pretended to laugh it off, but when Blaise asked why he was in such a hurry to get away at such an hour he quickly became sober. No reason. Doesn't matter. How are you?

That's when Blaise asked him to roll up his left sleeve. Theo hesitated only briefly before revealing the recently burned skin. The smell of charred flesh filled the small room and Blaise felt so sick he thought he would throw up right there.

"I'm so sorry, Blaise. I didn't want this, you know I didn't want this." Theo had begged Blaise to

forgive him, looking earnest and worried. Theo's father had forced him into the service. Blaise knew that, but it didn't quite take the betrayal away. They had agreed last summer, both of them together, they wouldn't fight. But Theo had his father to deal with, and both of them knew that it was soon going to be over. Theo was always too righteous to be a Slytherin, and his father was always too cruel to be anything but.

So it really wasn't very surprising to Blaise. Still, it hurt like hell. So on that cold August morning he wandered through the gardens to their tree, searching for anything to comfort him, any shard of their past. It was under these branches where they had grown up, scrambling in its limbs when they were young, falling out of it when they were older. Where they had carved their names in the ancient oak when they were eight. Where they had sat last summer to agree on their sides. Where they began to meet to try and get help for Theo, where he had agreed with Blaise to go to Dumbledore. Where he had begged Blaise last week to watch out for his mother if anything happened. And now it was where Blaise sat alone.

"DAMMIT THEO!" he cried out, kicking at the trunk with more force then he had intended. Doing no damage to the tree, but feeling the sharp pain in his foot, Blaise fell on the earth and cried.

_Why? Why now, we were so close. We could have gotten help. We could have saved you. Salvation remember? You could have had redemption._

"It's not so bad you know," came a soft voice from behind him. Blaise turned to see a broken figure lean up against the tree, tossing an apple from hand to hand.

"Are you real?"

"In a way. I'm in your mind. Doesn't really matter though, does it? You've been going insane for

awhile now, anyway." The image of the dead boy smiled.

"Bloody hell, Theo, you look awful," Blaise observed. Theo had bruises crowding his face, his lip was split, his eyes hollow and sunken and black, with a streak of blood congealed around his neck. He just continued to grin, creating the split in his lip to stretch. Blood trickled from the small cut, but he didn't seem to notice. It didn't matter anyway. "Why are you here?"

Theo smirked, "to play the serpent." In one blink of an eye he was gone, the only remnant of him was the apple on the grass. Without hesitating, Blaise took a bite.

* * *

lyrics sleeper 1972 by manchester orchestra 


	3. three

**Three**

_jesus christ i'm alone again,_

_so what did you do those three days you were dead?_

_cause this problems gonna last more than the weekend._

Arriving on the Hogwarts Express alone was quite possibly the most painful experience Blaise had ever been through. He was accustomed to Theo beside him, nudging him, laughing. He was accustomed to blending in with the shadows. The silent Slytherin, the observer. He felt revealed now, exposed and naked. Despite Blaise's overactive imagination, nothing had changed. No one saw him. At least, no one saw him yet. Blaise found a rare empty compartment and sat alone inside, reveling in the solitude- the calm before the storm.

_Just let me be alone. Just let no one see me. Just let no one ask_

Blaise silently prayed, begging to just be able to make to Hogwarts okay. One step at a time, but of course he had to trip.

"Oi, Zabini" Blaise looked up to see a sneering Draco Malfoy leaning against the doorframe, "heard Nott got killed off. Rumor tells me he screamed when they tortured him, cried like a child when they threatened death." He tried to ignore it at first, it wasn't worth it. Theo wouldn't want him to get into a fight with Malfoy over him. At least, not until Malfoy said those last three words that completely did it, "**he deserved it**."

Blaise didn't even know what was happening. He had leapt on top of Malfoy, forgetting about magic, he punched every inch of flesh he could reach. He wanted to make him look like Theo did, hurt like Theo must have.

Pulling Malfoy up by the collar Blaise hissed, "You bastard, I know you did it to him. Where you the one who said that last curse? Or just the one who beat him until he fell? Or the one who cursed him so badly he would have been driven insane even if you didn't kill him?"

Malfoy growled and shoved Blaise off. Leaping up, he returned the favor to the other boy; kicking and beating him until Blaise could no longer see. Malfoy finally grabbed and shoved him against the wall, "Watch it, Zabini. We're giving you a chance, we could use you. You know what you are. But if you dare fuck this up I swear you'll end up just like Nott," Malfoy fumed, wand at Blaise's throat. Unable to do anything else, Blaise spat in Malfoy's face.

Unfazed, Malfoy wiped his face with his robe sleeve before warning him once again, "I won't tell you again, Zabini. Watch your back." With that he walked away, letting a defeated Blaise to drop to the ground. Completely at a loss of what to do, Blaise began to laugh.

--

Hermione Granger knew very little about Blaise Zabini. Still, she was an observer. She studied people like she studied her various tomes and so she had guessed a bit about the silent boy. However, there were three things she knew for sure. One was that he was best friends with Theodore Nott. Two, he was incredibly intelligent. Three, he was currently sitting in the abandoned corridor of the Hogwarts Express laughing histerically and simultaneously coughing up blood. Unsure of what to do, yet unwilling to let the wounded boy just sit there, Hermione awkwardly stopped in front of him before hesitantly speaking.

"Er…Zabini? Do you need help?" she got no reply. Instead Blaise looked up at her slowly, as if he didn't quite understand her question. It was then that Hermione noticed his hollow eyes. Dark pools of indigo looked through her, there was a lack of interest, almost a lack of life. She soon learned something else: four, Blaise Zabini was broken.

* * *

lyrics- jesus christ by brand new 


	4. four

**Four**

_if you knew i was dying, would it change you?_

Blaise didn't quite register what Granger had asked. She kept looking at him expectantly and finally tried again, "Zabini…do you need help?" Determined to prove that he was fine, Blaise attempted to stand up and move back into his abandoned compartment. Immediately he stumbled and would have fallen, but someone held firmly on to his arm. Barely aware of what was happening, Blaise allowed Granger to guide him slowly into the compartment and sit him down. When she took out her wand, however, he was alarmed.

"Granger! What…what are you doing?" he asked, positive she would curse him.

"I'm healing you, Zabini. I don't know who did this, but you look terrible and really need some serious medical attention. In fact I strongly recommend that you immediately see Madam Pomfrey when we arrive at Hogwarts," Hermione spoke in a very frank tone, as if she healed Slytherin boys, whom she had never spoken to before, every day of her life.

Blaise didn't know what else to do but let her heal. His mind was too groggy to think of any other alternative. Obediently he let her poke and prod his face with her wand, not even noticing what sorts of spells she was whispering as she worked. Slowly his conscience became clearer, his senses more acute, and he once again felt physically fine. Mentally was another story.

A silence followed, neither of them spoke. Instead each studied the other. Blaise's eyes danced around the coils of her hair, winding snakes that framed her determined face. He watched her, the way she breathed softly. He studied the shadow of her eye lashes against the dappled sunlight on her skin. He observed the quiet solitude of her eyes, and the hesitant way she bit her lip- the ivory white pressed against the dark coral of her lip. He smirked.

Hermione furrowed her brow as she studied the contours and lines of his face. Her eyes roamed over his arched eyebrows, over the slight rise and twitch of the side of his lip. His long fingers played a song on his knee, strumming them up and down in a distinct rhythm. His dark hair curled over his forehead like wisps of smoke. She read the lines in his eyes, the indigo swirls that she could feel studying her quite the same way. For a long time, neither one of them spoke. They were content to sit opposite one another, studying each other's bodies and faces like they were books, reading each other like scripture.

Finally, Hermione asked, "What happened to Theodore Nott?" at the exact same time as Blaise questioned, "Do you believe in God, Granger?"

Both of them started, caught unaware by the other's question. And for the first time in their lives, they saw the same expression on one another's faces. Before either could reply they were broken apart by a soft cough. Both turned sharply to see Harry Potter standing in the doorway.

"Er, Hermione? Zabini? Professor Slughorn wants to see us all in his compartment," he stared at Hermione, he didn't have to speak.

_What..?_

_I'll tell you later._

---

The meeting with Slughorn was, to say the least, awkward. Hermione had nodded politely and smiled when Slughorn greeted her as the supposed "brightest witch of her age." She had pretended to act modest and attentive, all the while uncomfortably aware of Zabini's unwavering gaze. But she had endured much worse things, battles and curses, death of loved ones, brief encounters with Voldemort, so she could stand the inquisitive and piercing stare of one Blaise Zabini. It involved some uncomfortable squirming during the meeting until she grew exasperated enough to glare right back. Blaise simply smirked in response.

The end of the meeting was happily received by all. After they had made it back into the corridor, Hermione started to make her way back to where Ron and a few others were waiting for them. Harry slipped away, promising to meet up with her later. She had absolutely no idea what he was going to get into, and quite frankly she did not really care. She was pretty sure he went off to spy on Malfoy and, though she was concerned for his safety, she doubted he would hear anything of interest.

Once she was back in the compartment with Ron, they were soon joined by Ginny and Neville who had finally managed to escape Slughorn as well. They talked excitedly about the upcoming year until their arrival at Hogwarts. It was only when they were all in a carriage on the way up to the castle when they noticed Harry was still missing.

"Where do you think he went?" Hermione worried, "What if something happened?"

Ron shrugged, "He's probably fine. Don't worry. Besides if Malfoy did anything, we could easily deal with it. Ginny has a nasty bat-bogey," he shuddered at the thought.

Hermione sighed, "I suppose, still...Harry has a tendency to get a little hotheaded. Plus, he's got that idea of Malfoy being a Death Eater into his head."

"Even if he's not a Death Eater that doesn't mean that Malfoy won't try anything," Ron pointed out.

"I think Hermione is right, Ron," Ginny tentatively agreed, "besides, Dumbledore would take care of everything in the end."

"You never know!" Ron protested, "Those Slytherins are sneaky bastards. I wouldn't be surprised if they were up to no good."

Hermione looked uncertain, "Well, I did see something strange coming back from the prefect meeting. I'm not really sure what it was or what happened but…" Hermione proceeded to tell of her strange encounter with Zabini, leaving out his odd question. Deciding to muse over it more later when Harry returned, they were quiet after that, contemplating the strange events. For the rest of the ride they simply watched the rain beat down on the leathery wings of the all too visible thestrals outside.

_He that has and a little tiny wit--  
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,--  
Must make content with his fortunes fit,  
For the rain it raineth every day._

* * *

lyrics- i can barely breathe by manchester orchestra. "he that has and a little tiny wit.." is from King Lear_  
_


	5. five

**NOTE:** Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read this story so far. It's very exciting to see the stats on the story and how many people have read it. I would also like to especially thank the people who have taken the time to review. It really means a lot to me! I've never written fanfiction before, so if anyone else has time and if you could please tell me what you think/give advice/correct something/whatever please do so! I would really appreciate it.

**Thank you!**

* * *

** Five**  
_  
and when we break we'll wait for our miracle_

_God is a place where some holy spectacle lies_

When they had arrived at Hogwarts and Harry still was not present, the group of friends began to get more agitated. None of them could sit still through the sorting. Finally, there was a noticeable exhale of tension when Harry walked through the doors to the Great Hall. That is, until they saw his bloody face. All eyes turned to burn a hole through the boy as he made his way over the Gryffindor table. Hermione gasped at the sight of Harry's broken nose, and for the second time that day she siphoned off blood and healed whatever she could. Finally, when they were all settled and had sent enough glares to anyone who stared at Harry, they began to furtively whisper about what had happened.

After Harry had explained what he had seen, Ron and he remained convinced that Malfoy's boasts meant that he was clearly following Voldemort, though Hermione remained unsure. Following Harry's account, Hermione again shared her story of what she had seen with Zabini.

Ron shook his head after she had finished, "I still don't get it."

"So, do you think he's a...evil?" Harry asked, careful to avoid the words 'Death Eater.'

"Honestly, no." Hermione bit her lip uncertainly, "I think that Nott got into trouble with them. I think that a Slytherin was the one who hurt Zabini. No Gryffindor fights unprovoked, and it was clearly not a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff. "

"But why?" Ron questioned, "One of their own or whatever, don't they all stick together? Besides, Zabini is a pureblood."

Harry shook his head, "I think Malfoy is behind this."

"For the last time, Harry! We have no reason to believe that Malfoy is a Death Eater. Stop jumping to conclusions!" Hermione slammed her hand down on the table, causing several nearby first years to jump.

"Hermione, just think about it! Who else would do it?" Ron nodded emphatically.

"I don't know," Hermione sighed, "I have no idea." She glanced unsurely over towards the Slytherin table, right as Malfoy was leaning over and talking to Zabini, "But look over right now," Ron and Harry turned to see Malfoy smile (causing all of the Gryffindors to cringe at the unfamiliar sight) at the other boy, "does that look like he just beat him into a pulp?"

Harry grinned, "Well, I'll go over there and if he smiles at me too, then we'll know that's normal," they all laughed, but Hermione sobered quickly.

"Still, I have this terrible feeling that something horrible has happened. I think…" she paused uncertainly, "I think that Theodore Nott is dead."

Before any of them could contemplate this further, the feast ended and all the students began making their way up to their dormitories. Later, in the Gryffindor common room, the trio tried to push the unpleasant dealings of the day to the backs of their mind and, just for the moment, pretend like everything was fine. So they sat, laughing and talking with their other friends about what their summers had been like. But while Harry and Ron played an intense game of chess in the corner, Hermione sat alone to watch the last few embers of the fire die.

_Do you believe in God, Granger?_

The few words still rang in her mind. She turned over the simple phrase over and over again as she realized she had no answer to the question. For the first time in her life, Hermione Granger simply did not know.

---

Meanwhile, Blaise Zabini was terrified. After the meeting with Slughorn, during which he had amused himself by making Granger extremely uncomfortable, he was greeted sociably by Malfoy and the other Slytherin boys outside. As if nothing had happened. As if Malfoy hadn't tried to kill him. As if their fathers didn't murder his best friend the other night.

"_I told you we would give you another chance_," Malfoy had whispered into his ear once they were in the carriage, "_don't forget though- watch your back._"

Slytherin was a complicated place to be. If you did as the others said, kept your true thoughts to yourself, and never admitted to anything you would fit right in. Theo and him had managed to survive for the past five years by simply by steering clear of the gangs within their house. But no one flies solo in Slytherin, the risks are too high. So Blaise either had two options at this point: either he would pretend to accept Malfoy's beliefs, or he would avoid them at all costs. The second option, though it seemed preferable, would be practically impossible. There was really no way to avoid Malfoy's crew. They were like a dark plague, poisoning everything they touched, and they would not stop until everything had been infected. As cowardly as he was, Draco Malfoy could also be incredibly devious.

So Blaise pretended to accept what Malfoy was telling him, he pretended to smile back when Malfoy joked with him about Potter's misfortunes during dinner, he laughed when Malfoy made a crack about Granger's blood. Still, he felt like there was fire in his marrow. After the feast had ended he slipped away and managed to make it up to the dormitory without being interrupted again. Blaise lay alone, quiet, and melancholy on his bed. He pretended to sleep as the other boys slowly filtered into the room, as the conversation ceased, and as lights slowly faded away. It was when the only sounds in the room were quiet breaths when he opened his eyes, knowing immediately what was going on.

"Theo." It wasn't a question, it was simply a statement. Barely audible, a breath lost to any living ears. Blaise sat straight up to face the image of his friend sitting cross-legged against one of the bed posts.

Theo grinned, "You look happy. Aren't you glad to see me, Blaise?"

Blaise didn't move, "Of course, how many people get to be tortured by the spirit of their murdered best friend?"

Theo frowned at the word murdered, "You make it seem like I didn't put up a fight."

"How would I know if you did?"

"I'll tell you all about it some time. I'm here for you, not to talk about my untimely end." Theo looked at Blaise expectantly, "All is going to plan, by the way. You'll be glad to know that you have begun to fall."

"I don't get this, Theo." Blaise groaned, "What are you talking about?"

"Just look for Eve, okay?" with that elusive statement, he was gone, and Blaise was left alone once more in the lonely room. Lying back, Blaise finally fell into a dreamless sleep in a room where everyone had a secret.

* * *

lyrics two-headed boy pt. two by neutral milk hotel 


	6. six

**NOTE:** Again, thanks for reading. I hate to whine and beg, but some reviews would be amazing (be them good or bad). Thanks again.

* * *

** Six **

_if God controls the land and disease, and keeps a watchful eye on me, if he's really so damn mighty, well my problem is that i can't see, well who'd wanna be? who'd wanna be such a control freak?_

The next few days passed with little incident. Harry had already gotten himself into trouble with Snape, had been summoned to Dumbledore for a private lesson, and convinced Slughorn that he was a potions protégée. As the first week progressed, however, Hermione still found herself revisiting that moment on the train over and over again. It was a Friday afternoon, after a long quiet day, when Hermione found herself in the library. It was about three o'clock and the sun was even with the large windows along the western wall, causing a bright glow to infiltrate the room and paint dark purple shadows on the floor. She remembered this years later because she distinctly remembered the way Zabini's shadow looked stretched out from where he was sitting.

Hermione took a deep breath and marched straight over to his chair. She promptly slammed her books down on his table, causing him to jump and look up from his parchment, leaving a spreading flood of ink across the page.

"No, I don't." Hermione stated.

Zabini seemed to understand immediately, "Why?"

"Because it's not possible that there is one. Because there is no proof. Because I have never seen a miracle and I can't believe that someone could possibly be watching over us, that an omnipotent being could be giving life to all on this planet. Because I've watched too many people die in this war to fool myself into thinking that someone was watching them, that someone cared for innocent people. Because if God exists then he wouldn't take away life. Because I found out about magic, and it's illogical to simultaneously have that and God," she stopped, completely out of breath.

Blaise simply looked at her, his gaze unwavering the entire time she spoke, watching the way her cheeks began to stain with pink as she built up her speech. When Granger finished he felt her stare at him expectantly, waiting for a reply- an argument, an agreement, anything.

When he did not reply she hesitantly asked, "What happened?"

"What do you think happened, Granger?"

There was another pause. It seemed that once again they had resumed their dance of eyes, unabashedly staring at the other.

"Did you know that Theo always believed in God?" Blaise finally stated, "He always tried to convince me he was real. I always told him he was an idealist. But it always confused me why he seemed so scared when he talked about it. But you know, I think he was right. At least about some of it. If there is a God, it seems like he isn't doing much. _As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;  
They kill us for their sport. _"

Hermione looked at him carefully, "Who are you, Zabini?" with that she walked away, leaving the boy sitting alone in the slowly retreating sunlight.

---

Blaise was wandering aimlessly about somewhere on the seventh floor. He had hopped over trick steps, meandered from staircase to staircase, and was now counting the stones that lined the hallway.

_Every stone is a cemetery_.

He counted the outlines of the bricks, looking for solace in the ancient carvings.

_I am the mortar. I am the resin. _

"You're actually more like the wall itself," Blaise turned around, "You're not really holding anything together. You're just made up of the memories, the cemeteries, the ghosts."

"Like yourself?"

"No," Theo shook his head, "I'm not a ghost. I'm something more than that."

Blaise rolled his eyes, "Are you ever going to explain any of this?"

"One day," the ghastly image grinned, "if you would start listening to me. Like I said- you're the wall. Haven't you started to wonder what's keeping you together?"

Blaise slid down against the wall so that he was sitting on the cold ground, "Everything that used to keep me together is drowning me now, it's all pulling me apart. It's getting hard to breathe, you know."

"I know."

Blaise dropped his head into his lap, "Things are going to get much worse, aren't they?"

"Hey Zabini, did you know that talking to yourself is the first sign of insanity?"

Blaise looked up. The spot where Theo had stood was now vacant, and instead Harry Potter was looking at him as if he were mental. _Which was probably true. _

"I'm not talking to myself, Potter," Blaise argued, "I was merely having a conversation with the wall. It's a cemetery, you know."

Potter looked confused, "It's a wall, Zabini. No one is buried there."

"Yes," Blaise agreed, "but I never said it was a cemetery of people. There are many more things within its mosaic. It's just filled with memories, that's all. A scrap yard for Mnemosyne. The leftovers, the ones no one wants anymore, the ones you erase when you tear your photos, the ones that creep into your dreams and leave you sleepless for another night. They're all lurking right here, right beneath me," he brushed the wall with the tips of his fingers.

Potter simply stared at him like he was deranged, "Did you know that you're mental, Zabini?"

"Oh yes," Blaise nodded, "and everyone said you were a liar! You're really quite good at reading people, Potter."

"Who hurt you on the train?" Potter tried to steer the conversation where he wanted it.

Blaise smirked, "Oh I see Granger probably told you all about that? Yes, of course. Typical. You're all really so predictable. I'm sure you've already guessed that it's Malfoy and you're possibly debating over whether or not he's a Death Eater. Honestly, you're all getting rather boring."

"So he is a Death Eater!" he looked triumphant, "I knew it!"

"I never said that," Blaise shook his head, "I merely suggested that you were debating the possibility."

Potter rubbed his eyes exasperatedly, "Whatever, Zabini. I have to go. Tell the wall I say hello." He turned and walked back off down the hallway.

Blaise waited until Potter was completely out of earshot before he turned back to the wall and stated, "Harry Potter says hello."

Theo grinned.

* * *

lyrics are bukowski by modest mouse. "_As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;__ They kill us for their sport."_ is from King Lear by Shakespeare 


	7. seven

**NOTE: **this is me being obnoxious: PLEASE PLEASE **review**.. it really means a lot and I would like to know what I'm doing right/wrong. So please, if you hate it or like it...tell me! **PLEASE**. Thank you.

* * *

**Seven**

_throw me a dream please, its been a dreamless sleep _

_for such a long time, such a long time._

_sing myself awake, watch the branches break_

_no one could ever take your place_

Harry walked away from Zabini utterly confused. The boy was clearly a nutcase. Still, there was something incredibly interesting about him. Or at least, something that he wanted to study and to observe. It was like watching the buildup to a terrible accident, waiting for the crash to come. Harry continued turning over what Zabini had said in his mind. He looked past the information about Malfoy being a Death Eater. Not only was it completely pointless, but Harry was beginning to see more than that. There was something off about him, something strange.

He slipped into the Gryffindor common room unnoticed, walking carefully over to where Hermione and Ron were sitting, Hermione studying and Ron 'writing his essay.'

"_Hermione_," he whispered so quietly that she jumped in surprise, "I just saw Zabini in the hallway on the way back from Dumbledore's lesson." He then proceeded to explain what had happened, watching the way a shadow began to fall on his friend's face.

"I don't get him," Harry finished, "it was the strangest thing I've ever seen. But there's something…there's something that's just off.

"Why are you so interested in him?" Hermione questioned.

Harry looked at her carefully, "Because he's a mystery. Why are you?"

Hermione looked away, "Because so few people are," she countered.

"I-" Harry was interrupted by a loud groan and the sound of parchment being crumpled into a ball.

"This is pointless," Ron groaned, putting his head in his hands, "honestly how do they expect us to do all of this? Hermione can I please see your essay? I just need a few more inches…"

Hermione sighed as she picked up Ron's smashed essay where it had fallen at her feat. She absentmindedly smoothed it out so that the ridges became slight hills, careful not to smudge the scrawled sea of ink. "It's in my bag, Ron. Just go ahead," she said wearily. Ron grinned and dove into her bag, rooting around for the treasured sheet. Hermione turned back to Harry as she slid the paper back across the table.

"Well, anyway. What did Dumbledore tell you?" she asked in a hushed voice.

Ron looked up from the depths of Hermione's bag as Harry sighed and began to tell everything he had seen. When he finished both of his friends looked perplexed.

"It's a little different than I expected," Hermione stated uncertainly.

"I imagined he would be teaching you spells, curses, you know…fighting and all," Ron agreed.

Harry shrugged, "He said it had…he said it was important. I'm not sure why. Maybe he'll explain it all later."

Hermione sighed and stood up, "Well, we'll find out soon enough. See you tomorrow." She bid goodnight to the boys and left them in the common room, scrambling to finish those last couple inches. As she lay alone later, however, Hermione found her mind drifting once more back to the mysterious Slytherin boy. What was wrong with him? Harry's account seemed bizarre enough. There was something odd about him. Sighing, Hermione turned over and finally drifted into sleep.

She didn't dream.

---

Blaise, however, found himself to be having the first dream in several weeks. He was standing in a cold room, there were figures around him. Black, dark, robed- he couldn't see through the gloom. The only thing in the room emitting any light at all was himself. For some reason, he seemed to have a sort of permeable effulgent haze about him, bathing his fingertips in gold.

"Watch carefully," a voice spoke behind him, "I promised I would show you soon."

Blaise felt Theo beside him, nudging him to move forward through the crowd. The figures seemed to be standing around a large open circle. Blaise could hear rough laughter and shouts coming from somewhere on his left. There was a great shove in the crowd, and finally a half-naked girl was thrown into the middle of the circle.

Blaise's eyes focused in on the female. She was battered, blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth. She was dirty, she was alone, and she was terrified. Tears streaked the dirt on her cheeks, smearing the filth with her blood. Blaise felt sick. He could barely he what was happening, a hiss, laughter, the word mudblood again and again. And then came the blasts of light, the screams, the agony of her twisting limbs.

The girl did not beg, she did not plead. She let them kick her, break her, she let them destroy her. Blaise vomited on the cold stone floor. When he raised his head, she was looking right at him. She was breathing raggedly now, her eyes had a film over them. Blaise traced her form on the ground, he noticed the pale slender of her wrist laying next to her delicate cheek bone, now sunken in with despair.

He raised his wand hand, he watched as green shot into her pleading eyes. He needed hate to use it, he knew that. But it wasn't against her- for her it was mercy, forgiveness, redemption. The crowd fell silent. All the faces turned to the boy. And that's when he started yelling. He couldn't even hear himself, all he knew was that he was screaming, he was cursing them, cursing what they did, defending the girl, throwing spells wherever he could. Then he was burning burning, his limbs were on fire and he couldn't think he couldn't breathe all there was was the end. He was gasping for air. Then suddenly he heard his voice praying but he couldn't see, he couldn't see, he could only feel.

_i'm sorry i know this is late but please oh god oh god help me where are you i didn't want this i never wanted this. _

Everything finally slid into focus when Voldemort stood above him, wand raised. "You should have listened to your father, Theodore."

Blaise's eyelids flew open.

"I told you, I did try to put up a fight." Theo was standing next to his bedside, "I'm so sorry you saw that. But you had to know, you had to know, Blaise."

Blaise responding by vomiting on his sheets.

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lyrics are i sing i swim by seabear 


	8. eight

**NOTE: **Here is chapter eight. You know what I like? If you guessed **reviews**…congratulations! I know readers hate when the author whines about it- but to have about a thousand views and 13 reviews is a little disheartening. Make me happy, please.

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**Eight**

_I'm there yeah, I serve them, the one with the empty looking eyes_

_Come closer, you'll see me- the face that is used to telling lies_

Hermione did not see or hear anything about Zabini until the next Slug Club dinner several weeks later. For some reason, throughout the dinner she kept hoping that he would say something to her. Instead he stared silently at nothing for the entirety of the meeting. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin looked sallow, he seemed to barely register anything that people were saying. He didn't touch his food. When the dinner was over he stumbled out of the room, ignoring Slughorn's concerned questions. Hermione decided, in a whirlwind of a moment, to follow the boy's meandering path down the corridor. Falling into step next to him, Hermione walked alongside Zabini until he finally turned towards her.

"Do you want something, Granger?" he glared.

Hermione bit her lip uncertainly, "Zabini, you look really terrible. Are you okay?"

Blaise started unsuspecting. She seemed genuinely concerned. The truth was that he wasn't fine, he was horrible. Ever since Theo had shown him his last few sordid moments on earth Blaise had not been able to sleep. He just lay awake each night, hollow eyes haunting his pallid soul. There was no way to really answer her question. Sighing, Blaise chose to answer an earlier one of hers.

"I am Blaise Zabini. I am alive. I wish I weren't. I am going insane. I am the rebellion that's brewing beneath the castle walls. I am the fire that ebbs beneath the wrinkled sea. I am the west wind. I haven't slept in almost three weeks. I am not a Death Eater, many wish I were. I don't speak much but I'm rather superfluous. To be honest with you, I have no idea who the fuck I am, and I'm slowly spiraling out of control."

He turned away, away from her, away from the questions he knew would come. Yet as he slowly began to move away, he felt a soft, hesitant touch on his shoulder. Surprised, he turned his head to see Granger placing her palm to his body. It was enough. He nodded to her before walking down the hallway towards his dormitory, leaving the girl standing alone. That night, Blaise Zabini slept peacefully for the first time in three weeks.

----

They were sitting across from each other in the library. They didn't have to talk to be aware of the other's presence. They both sat silently doing their work, he a little more reluctant than her. Not only did he barely care about transfiguration, but he was also incredibly distracted by the sound of her quill scrawling pages upon pages of essay, or the way she would often make little sighs of exasperation before scribbling out mistakes. Finally, after one particularly large huff, Blaise looked up irritably from his books.

"Do you honestly have to make so much noise, Granger?" he asked pointedly. Hermione did not respond but instead glared daggers across the table before going straight back to her essay. Blaise shook his head and attempted to continue his work. Several minutes later he was interrupted by Granger frustrated crumbling an entire sheet of her essay in a ball.

Blaise growling, "Honestly, Granger, come on!" rolling his eyes.

Hermione set down her work and stared menacingly across the table at him before softening slightly, "Why don't you want to become a Death Eater?"

Blaise just stared at her before sputtering, "What is wrong you? Every time you talk you have to change the subject to something completely irrelevant."

"Well you do the same thing!" Hermione argued.

"I do not!" Blaise barked back. He fumed at her for awhile before continuing, "I don't want to because it's wrong. Not a hard concept. The thought of the innocent dying…"

"Like Theo?" Hermione delicately interrupted.

He swallowed hard, "Like anyone. Like Diggory. Like Potter's parents. Any of them. It's wrong."

"_Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life- and thou no breath at all_?" she quoted softly.

His chest constricted tightly, "_Thou'lt come no more. Never, never, never, never, never_."

They sat silently for a long time, seeing the feeling in the other's face, knowing exactly how the other felt. They didn't move until the sun slowly began to retreat back into the heavens.

Finally, Blaise rose and moved to exit. Stopping, he turned around to face Hermione, "Granger…thank you." He didn't turn around again to see the half-smile on her lips.

Theo was waiting for Blaise outside the library, ever relaxed, leaning against the cold stone. "Well done, Blaise. You've made some improvement." Blaise sneered at the boy in response.

* * *

lyrics take me to the riot by stars. "why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life- and thou no breath at all? thou'lt come no more. never, never, never, never, never" is from King Lear 


	9. nine

**NOTE:** Welcome to Chapter Nine.. as always.. let me know what you think by reviewing. It takes about three seconds of your time and makes me ridiculously happy. **  
**

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**Nine**

_I cannot remember the Lord's Prayer  
I cannot remember, oh but I don't care  
I cannot recall my best friend's face  
blurs and outlines, eternal fall_

Blaise had been able to sleep perfectly fine for the past month and a half or so. He had not seen Theo at all, either, which made him believe that his visits were nothing more than hallucinations due to lack of sleep. He still thought about him, though, he would never be able to stop that. It was on a cold November morning when Blaise woke up terrified. He could not remember what Theo's voice sounded like. He did not need an invisibility cloak, blending into the tint of the shuddering shadows was a talent he was praised for. He remained carved into the castle walls, a relief embedded in the stone. Slipping through the castle, Blaise found himself walking aimlessly along the shores of the lake.

He stood on the brink, looking out over the abyss of the waves, the ignited ringlets that hopped and jumped along each breath of the wind. Stepping forward, Blaise lunged forward into the spray, entwining himself with the water.

_father forgive me_

He cupped his palms and dipped them into the deep.

_for I have sinned_

He slowly poured the droplets over his chest, staining his white shirt.

_its been too long since my last confession_

He scrubbed at his arms, tore at his chest, trying so hard to clean himself, to purge away whatever he had inside of him, whatever made Malfoy keep hinting to him that he should become a Death Eater, whatever it was that made him dream of torture, whatever it was that was dragging him into the depths of his own mind.

Dropping his arms to his sides, Blaise gazed out longingly at the surface of the lake. It looked so inviting, the siren waves kept snatching at him with their frothy hands. Blaise leered at the water, he thought it was wrong how wanton it was, how splayed out the deep looked, begging him to enter. _the calm cool face of the river asked me for a kiss_. Leaning forward, Blaise began to oblige.

---

Hermione was restless. She had lain in her bed, twisted around the sheets, waiting for sleep to descend. Nothing ever came. Her chest just felt tight, she could not breathe in her room. Having taken Harry's cloak and the map, Hermione managed disturb him at all. She escaped out of the castle, avoiding a muttering Filch and an impish Peeves to find herself out in the crisp clear air of the open sky.

Hermione breathed in deeply. It was beginning to smell like winter, yet it still had that tinge of the autumn. She walked silently on the vast lawn of the school, watching the way the grass bent underneath her foot. Suddenly, she heard a slight splash coming from down near the lake. Hermione slipped through the trees and peered towards the dark mere. Blaise Zabini stood knee deep in the freezing water soaking wet from head to toe. As she watched in fascination, he slowly lowered himself beneath the surface.

When he didn't come up after several moments, Hermione began to get very afraid. Pulling off the invisibility cloak as she ran, Hermione plunged into the lake. Shivering she splashed her way towards Zabini's form and mustered all her strength to wrench him from the waves.

Zabini came up sputtering, water poured out of his mouth and seaweed stained his cheek. "Granger! Why do you--" he paused to cough up some murky liquid, "keep meddling in my life? You'd think someone would be able to drown in peace these days."

Hermione ignored his protests as she pulled him towards the shore. Once she had reached the sandy coast she collapsed upon the rocks upon the sand. Sighing, Zabini flopped down next to her, panting as he lay on his back and looked up at the sky. Lifting a finger, he began to trace the patterns that the stars made in the empyrean. Tiny constellations, pinpricks of light dotted the sky. A beaded rosary, a chain of fire held together by manmade lines.

Hermione followed the movements of his finger as he began to speak, "Did you ever think about how amazing the sky is? All of those deadly fireballs seem so innocent from here, tiny eyes that gaze down at the earth. It's kind of sublime. The sky is one of the reasons why I think Theo was right about God," he dropped his hand back to his side before continuing, "because despite all of the devastation, we still have beauty that's greater than us."

"The stars can fall," Hermione murmured, "the sea can drain away, mountains may fall apart, stone may wear away- but there is always beauty in the world. Something so fragile, so gentle, can remain forever and ever while the strongest substances of the earth are destroyed."

"I believe in God," Blaise whispered, "because I believe that whoever it is, it is evident in every drop of splendor in the world. The stars are just another reminder that God will always speak more eloquently than I, that God will always write better poetry than I ever will."

Hermione sighed, "I think the sky is terrifying in its beauty. There's no room for us, the stars are laced with the curves of those mythological immortals. We are both twitches in the universe. But you, you're restless. You want to embark on some sort of adventure, but you're prematurely condemned. _Memento mori_."

Blaise was surprised, "Who knew you were such a realist, Granger? I thought you were filled with the idyllic Gryffindor outlook on life," he ignored Hermione's glare, 'but you're right, you know. The trail is crushed, there are footprints fossilized knee-deep in the earth that restrict us."

Hermione felt her eyelashes brush her skin, she could barely hear herself speak, "You're an enigma, Blaise Zabini."

He turned his face towards her, watching the way her breath rose in spiraled puffs, "I'm not that complicated," he reassured, "I just—I am empty."

She nodded slightly, "You're not a star, you're a meteor. You're the fading embers on the ash."

He sighed and, at a loss for his own words, chose another's, "_that time of year thou mayst in me behold, when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang upon these boughs which shake against the cold. bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang_." he paused, listening to the flutter of her eyelashes, "_in me thou seest the twilight of such day, as after the sunset fadeth in the west, which by and by black night doth take away, death's second self, that seals up all in rest_."

Hermione softly interrupted him, "_in me thou see'st the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth lie, as the death-bed whereon it must expire, consumed with that which it was nourished by_."

"I answered you before- it's my turn now. Who are you, Granger?"

She refused to answer. Not now, not this time. A promise passed from her lips to his ear.

Much later, when Hermione had made her way back to her own bed, she slowly fell into the confines of sleep. As she fell, however, she murmured the last couplet to herself, "_this thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long_." Floors and hundreds of stones away, Blaise's voice echoed her own.

* * *

lyrics are vision of heaven by bloc party. "_the calm cool face of the river asked me for a kiss" _is the poem "suicide's note" by langston hughes. the end quote is sonnet 73 by william shakespeare. coughreviewcough. 


	10. ten

reviewreviewreviewreview. please. thank you. please.

also, i recently wrote a quick blaise/hermione one shot called eloquent graffiti, if anyone is interested in seeing that too.

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**Ten**

_when lengths of snakes match each silent syllable, "with eyes like these"  
face glistening with suspense of a scalpel blade, clockwork calculating surgical precision_

_but this mud looks shallow from the beach when we hide behind such ugly faces  
wnd the dark eyed woman lifts her head "why do we hide behind such ugly faces?"._

It was a few days before the holidays and the whole castle seemed to pivot around the idea of a break. Classes were moving quickly as the teachers attempted to cram as much knowledge as they could in before the semester ended. Still, it seemed as if none of the students could really focus, Hermione Granger included. She felt restless; for once in her life she was exhausted of school and reveled in the idea of two glorious weeks of freedom. She knew, however, that despite however long she spent away from school- her mind would always drift back to it.

Hermione was also extremely worried. Not for herself, but rather for the mysterious boy she seemed to have developed a strange friendship with. Random snatches of conversation here and there filled her mind, drifted across corridors, sunken into library books, stolen amongst the reeds on the bank of the lake. Their conversations were always figurative, literal seemed an ephemeral possibility unknown to both. They were brief and filled with enigmas. They always involved some sort of an argument. Hermione would bite her lip and haughtily chastise and Blaise would sarcastically rebuke her. The boy seemed to speak in riddles, always leaving Hermione's mind a tangled web of intangible ideas.

Then there was the fear. The fear in his eyes when he described what he dreamed of. He never spoke of Theodore, though, and Hermione had learned not to ask. There was just the remorse in his eyes, black holes drowning in dimming indigo pools. Just the butterscotch skin and hands made of leather, fashioned to hold broken glass. Just the chords in his voice that reverberated when he recounted the torture he saw in his mind's eye. Just the regret. Just the memorized anaphora that broke down Hermione's façade of strength, that shriveled her until she too began to topple off her marble pedestal. She couldn't speak a lot, these days. Her tongue felt of parchment and her words tasted of ink, desperate for rain to scrape the dusty guilt off the roof of her mouth.

Hermione was terrified that over those weeks of relaxation, Blaise would suffer. That he wouldn't be able to hide anymore. When they saw one another at Slughorn's Christmas party they did not speak to each other, they never spoke in public. Hermione was all too aware of his fate from Malfoy if he saw his favourite recruit talking to a Mudblood. But when they passed by each other, Blaise pressed a note into Hermione's hand.

_i need to tell you something outside._

Hermione slipped out of sight and out of the door. She leant up against the cold stone outside and silently watched the slow path of an ant climb hazily across the wall as she waited.

He came in precisely five minutes and twelve seconds, but she wasn't counting.

Hermione looked at him disapprovingly, "You should be a little more subtle, you know. Some Slytherin is going to see you. They'll give you hell for this."

"Better to rule in hell than serve in Heaven," Blaise countered, "besides, I don't really care at this point. I'm probably going to die in a week anyway."

Hermione frowned slowly, "What are you talking about?"

"Malfoy cordially invited me to stay at his manor for a few days during the holiday. To 'meet some of Father's friends.'"

Hermione had one solution, "Go to Dumbledore."

Blaise sneered, "Why? To have him tell me that there's no hope? That I'm doomed? Or what else, that I should become a spy? You're so fucking perfect that you really can't realize this situation, can you?"

"I- what?"

"Everything you do you have to do it so _well_. Why can't you stop being such an idealist for a minute and realize the severity of this situation? I know you can be a realist so wake **up**, Granger. Get over your stainless façade and do something."

Hermione was shocked. Before she could reply, however, a new voice forced its way between them, "Well if it isn't the Mudblood," Malfoy's distinctive drawl crawled towards her.

"Oh shove off, Malfoy," Hermione was too exasperated and exhausted to fight with Malfoy at the moment, "Honestly why do you always come picking fights you know you'll lose? You know full well that I'm better than you at dueling."

Malfoy glared, "How good are you when Potter and Weasley aren't here?" he raised his wand threateningly. Just then, the door to the party flew open and Harry came tumbling out looking for Hermione. Momentarily distracted by the arrival of her best friend, Hermione looked away. Right at that moment, a black light shot out from the tip of Malfoy's wand. Terrified, Blaise stepped in front.

---

The next few moments were of a daze to everyone. Malfoy stood still, shocked that he had accidentally hit one of his own. Harry didn't move, staring down at the still body on the ground. Hermione ran. When Blaise awoke in the hospital wing seven hours later, Theo was standing over him.

He smirked, "Congratulations, Blaise. How does it feel to fall?" Blaise fell back asleep.

---

Later, Malfoy came to stand beside his bedside. After Blaise had easily assured him that he was not paying attention to what was going on, that he was distracted by Potter bursting into the hallway, Malfoy seemed reassured. He had nodded once with a serious look on his face. Then he once again insisted that Blaise visit over the holidays.

Blaise told him that he would be there.

No matter what.

* * *

lyrics- How the Leopard Got Its Spots by portugal the man 


	11. eleven

**note**; this is chapter eleven, and i apologize for how short it is! anyway- as always, please review because that is polite and makes me happy (even if they say something bad. i just need some critique). critique gooood. anyway...**  
**

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** Eleven**

_And I've been consistent, _

_I'm just a skeleton_

She could not rest. She just sat, turning over what she had to say in her mind. When she had finally decided, Hermione had roughly sixteen and a half minutes till the train left. Once she had started running down the hallway, she had sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes before he was gone. Sixteen minutes to find him. She sprinted through the corridors of Hogwarts so quickly that she felt like she was inhaling glass, till her lungs hurt and her legs pounded and shook. "_Where could he be?"_ was moaned at seven minutes.

When there was roughly five minutes and fifty seven seconds left, she found him on the third floor. Hermione skidded to a stop in front of the boy.

Trying to breathe she panted, "I hate being perfect. Did you know that? I hate being known as the epitome of purity, of being unsullied, of being a prisoner to my pristine. Whatever God there may be, I owe him no debt. There is no mea culpa. Do you know how that feels? To be a hostage like that?" She took a step towards him, "I have such a vacuity of decay, can I really call this living? Blaise, you may feel like you're drowning in darkness but I _covet _that shade, I want to be covered in some sort of shadow, I _want _to be stained." She was closer now as she snatched his hand in hers, "I could be a martyr but I have no cause, I wish I could sin. You want me to help you into the light and I just want you to help me just feel like something, feel like _anything_. Just liberate me from this goddamned holy white."

There were three minutes and twelve seconds left when he crushed her hand within his own and pressed his lips to hers briefly before snatching them away. Horrified, he backed away and ran.

Hermione felt soiled. Horribly, wonderfully sordid.

She made it to the train with nine seconds left.

---

The train ride was met with silence. Hermione remained with Ron and Harry, vaguely listening as they discussed the upcoming holidays; they were all going back to the Burrow after all. She barely registered Harry discussing his last meeting with Dumbledore. She just did not notice when Harry asked her if she were okay. Instead she just half-smiled and traced the rain drops on the frosted window with the pad of her thumb. She did not see Harry and Ron exchange a worried glance, she was too busy smoothing the white skin of her wrist where, hidden beneath a robe sleeve, purple shadows of fingerprints hid inscribed on her skin.

She felt sullied. She felt at peace.

---

Blaise was alone, he was always alone. He had fallen into a twisted net of dreams for half of the ride, haunted by the image of white, pure white, sinking slowly into the burning sea. When he awoke, Theo was sitting across from him.

"I thought your job was done. You said I had fallen."

Theo shrugged, "You're not done yet. You're more than an Adam. You have to revolt. You have to rebuild."

Blaise laughed hollowly, "Lucifer? I'm now the rebellious angel?"

"You're at the abyss, Blaise. Your voyage isn't over yet."

"I have to completely fall."

Theo smirked, "to the bottom."

"Why did you have to die, Theo?" Blaise groaned, "I still don't understand…"

Theo sighed, "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, Blaise. It tolls for you."

Blaise looked out the glass at the raindrops streaming across the jagged sky. "_Into this wild abyss_…" he murmured, more to himself than to Theo's ghost. In a moment, he had fallen back asleep.

_Into this wild abyss,_

_The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,_

_Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,_

_But all these in their pregnant causes mixed_

_Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,_

_Unless the almighty maker them ordain_

_His dark materials to create more worlds,_

_Into this wild abyss the wary fiend_

_Stood on the brink of hell and looked awhile,_

_Pondering his voyage…._

* * *

lyrics- skeleton by bloc party, end quote is from paradise lost by john milton

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	12. twelve

okay, i apologize in advance for this being awful. i wrote this at three in the morning, but I felt bad about not having another chapter up- especially since i knew exactly what was supposed to happen next. so yes, i'm sorry that this is so scattered. (

on a happy note- thank you so much to all the people who review. it really really means a lot to me, and it gives me the crazy will to write chapters (albeit, bad ones) at three in the morning. so yes- those people who reviewed, thank you and I love you.

if you read this- please review. even if you think the story is awful. actually, especially then. reviews + critque is a very good thing. thank you.

anyway on to the story.

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**Twelve **

_when the dark flood came we wrapped ourselves inside a dirty blanket  
citing different opinions on whether we should move  
when the houses came they ate up everyone like they were fishes  
saying,__**"come on, come on its the end of the world"**_

**when i fly solo, i fly so high**

It was around ten o'clock, and he was somewhere in the middle of some woods, surrounded by some sort of tree, he had absolutely no idea. He was just running, running so hard he thought his lungs would collapse and he would fall apart right there, right then, in his weakest moment. He ran some more.

--

When he had been presented by a house elf into the drawing room, Malfoy had smiled superiorly. He had remained stiff backed, a marble cutout of the obscene. He listened carefully as the group of men around him--he could not see their faces--laid out his options. Draco was gone. He did not know where, and at this point, he frankly did not care. He watched the fire cast twisting shadows on the walls, licking up into the stone faces of the men. He did not bow with the rest of the group as they addressed a figure seated in the shadows, facing the wall. He barely listened when they introduced him, when they spoke of his talent, when they promised that he were a much more worthy replacement to "that Nott scum."

He did not notice his mouth moving when he droned out the responses they were looking for. He only started paying attention when Voldemort himself had his wand to the bare skin of his left forearm and had opened his serpent's mouth to hiss out a stream of vile. When the first burning sensation began to crawl up his arm and disappear within his marrow, he snapped.

It took one scream of, "NO," combined with the physical force of him shoving away the wand to curl the lip of Voldemort into a sneer.

While Blaise stood panting and clutching his arm to his heart, Voldemort simply asked, "You said….no?" dripping venom with every letter. It was the one word that destroyed him, "_Crucio_"

And then there was just fire, just the snap of his arteries, the blood from his nose, the pain in his chest and the burning in his mind as he felt himself driven to the edge, as he felt his arm breaking and his spirit and then the other curses he could barely hear but he felt their black stains creeping across his face.

Then it was over. And he was somehow alive, though every pain in every bone ached for him to be otherwise.

By some grace of some divine power, or by the sheer will of Blaise to get out of that place as fast as he could, and as alive as he could, he managed to rise, to disappear into the labyrinth of the mansion, then finally out onto the lawn. When he was in the words, the flashing lights chasing him ceased to follow. He was alone but _dear god help me breathe help me further _he was not stopping any time soon.

Lost, freezing, and completely and utterly broken- Blaise had no where to go. There was only one person he could possibly run to, as much as he hated to admit it.

In a desperate haze, Blaise thought with all his might _just get me to Granger, I don't care where she is just Granger granger Hermione Hermione. _With her face in his mind, he spun on the spot and disappeared into the sombre night.

--

Hermione was, at that moment, having an evening on the complete opposed side of the spectrum. She was seated in the warm room of the Burrow with the entire Weasley family, plus Harry, Lupin, and several other members of the Order. It was one of those movements so perfectly removed from the war going on around them, when they were all happy and smiling and laughing at some joke someone just told.

Suddenly, there was a loud popping sound in the front yard, followed by a frantic banging on the door. Everyone paused, frozen.

A split second later, Lupin and Bill were on their feet and moving slowly towards the door wands at the ready, heading the calls of everyone to be careful. Bill looked carefully at Remus, and on a silent count, threw open the door. Blaise Zabini, wounded, bleeding, and barely conscious fell into the threshold. Alarmed, the two Order members stepped away from the body, confused at the occurrence.

Hermione jumped to her feet and knelt carefully next to the boy, ignoring all the whispers behind her.

_Who is this? Harry…?_

_Blaise Zabini…Slytherin….our year….Hermione…._

Hermione carefully scanned Blaise's body, brushing her fingertips over his bruises, over the blood. He closed his eyes when she pressed her fingers to his cheek, he could feel her breath on his chin.

"Granger…I'm sorry…I thought…I thought that if I believed enough, that…" Blaise whispered in a croaking plea.

Responding only with her eyes, Hermione then looked up towards the rest of the group huddled around her, staring down, awkwardly distant from the dying boy.

"Someone get Dumbledore immediately. Harry," she looked at him carefully, begging him to listen to her, "help me."

It was enough. He moved forward and cast the infamous spell to allow the boy's body to rise in the air. When he turned back, no one had moved yet.

"Didn't you hear her? Someone contact Dumbledore, if you don't do it soon he could die!" he barked and immediately a silver animagus, he could not see whose, burst into the night.

--

An hour or so later there was still no reply from Dumbledore, but Blaise was sleeping as soundly as he could in Ron's own bed. Hermione had cared for him as best she could, and now all she could do was wait. Wait for Dumbledore, wait for Blaise to wake up. Just wait.

She sat across the room from him, watching the way his chest rose and fell in soft convex concave motions. Harry and Ron were sitting on either side.

Finally, Ron spoke, "Hermione….do you, do you trust him?"

Hermione said nothing at first, just watched the boy breathe. Finally she replied, "With everything I have, with everything I am."

The two boys nodded, "We trust you, Hermione," Harry carefully spoke, "if you believe him, if you trust him, then we do as well. We will help you with this."

Silently she took both of the hands into hers and, united, they waited together.

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lyrics are i can barely breathe by manchester orchestra 

by the way if you havent noticed yet, i use a lot of manchester orchestra. possibly because they are the future of music and the best band there is at the moment. go check them out. also check this song out since i played it on repeat while writing the chapter, and the whole thing basically sums up...everything.


	13. thirteen

**NOTE: **First of all, I have not updated this in a long time.. so I am very sorry. I have been very busy with school and life, but now i hope to get back into writing again. Secondly, this chapter is not at all my best work. I just wanted to get some things rolling, so forgive me that there is a lack of elegance. Hopefully as I get more into writing once again it will get better.. hopefully. Again, your **reviews and criticism **are always appreciated. Thank you all!

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**Thirteen**

_& I ran off, and ran on to something that I swore was everything but beautiful,  
I only say that word for you  
cause I can feel your pain in my bones, in my bones_

He slept for three days and two hours, he dreamt for the first three days. They weren't the twisting and harrowing nightmares of before, they simply sunk into his soul, images of people he had never seen and voices that he barely heard, let alone recognized. He awoke on a Saturday morning when it was raining. Without opening his eyes Blaise felt his body stretched out along the soft bed, listened to the drumming of rain against the roof, and waited for anything to happen.

He felt her press the back of her hand to his forehead. Slowly he opened his eyes. Hermione was sitting beside him, leaning over so that her curls brushed his chest.

"How are you feeling?" she murmured.

Blaise coughed, "Like I'm dying. How are you?"

"Pretty much the same," she sighed. Blaise felt a sharp pain in his chest.

Hermione slowly began to dress his wounds again, carefully checking over every tear. She muttered various spells, healing, touching, furrowing her brow as she concentrated. He watched her through his eyelashes. She was moving awfully quiet, biting her lip in that way he had noticed so many times, pressing the tips of her fingers against his cheek. He winced in pain, and instantly her hand shot back.

"Do you-" she hesitated, "do you want to talk about it? Dumbledore was here, he- well he wanted me to talk to you. Ask what happened, try to figure it out. He trusts you, you know."

Blaise scoffed, "What about Potter and Weasley?"

"They trust me." Hermione replied carefully, "and I, well I trust you too."

He felt that funny little pang again, it felt like someone was compressing his heart, like he was drowning.

Looking away from her, he began to speak, "I went to Malfoy's, but you knew that. I guess I knew what I was getting into; I knew that this was happen. But I kept hoping, I kept praying that if I believed I would be alright," noticing Hermione's visible wince he scowled, "why do you always assume that I'm talking about God when I say belief? Don't you understand, Granger? I just, I wanted to be strong. For Theo. For my mother. For myself. Malfoy did not do this though; I want to make that clear. I don't think he's a Death Eater, at least, not yet. He disappeared and I barely saw the faces that came. Lestrange was there. The Carrows. I just wanted to be something more than them. Something more, Granger. You can tell Dumbledore- and Potter and Weasley- that I refused. That's why this happened. Because I refused." He coughed again and felt his ribcage ache with pain and be racked by longing.

Hermione nodded slowly, "I would rather you tell them yourself." Standing, she turned to leave the room. Pausing, Hermione moved back towards Blaise before she slowly leaned over and placed a single brush of a kiss against the bruise on his cheek. A dark flush filled her own cheeks as she moved swiftly from the room.

Blaise rubbed the spot thoughtfully.

"I meant to say welcome back, by the way," he turned his head towards Theo standing in the doorway, "I thought for a little while I'd see you with me more often."

Blaise shrugged, "I do what I can. Is that what it felt like?"

"Worse, I imagine." Theo shrugged, "you're a lot stronger than me, you know."

Blaise started alarmed, "Don't think that, Theo, you were the strongest person I knew. I- I ran. You fought, I know you did. I watched you!"

Theo shook his head, "there is more than one way to be strong, Blaise. Just as there is more than one way to be brave. You are both. Don't doubt yourself. You have to believe, you know."

"Right of course," Blaise rolled his eyes, "I know. That's how all of this will be solved won't it? If I just believe. Of course."

Theo merely grinned. When Blaise blinked, he was alone again.

"Well? Did you talk to him?" Harry questioned the instant Hermione reached the bottom of the stairs.

The girl sighed, exhausted, "Yes, I did. But I think you should too, you will have to eventually. But it wasn't Malfoy. It was Death Eaters, at Malfoy's, but it wasn't him. Blaise doesn't think that he's a Death Eater."

"And you? What do you think?" chimed in Ron from Harry's other side.

Hermione shrugged, "I believe Blaise."

"What if he's lying?"

"He isn't."

Ron sighed, "Hermione, I know you want to trust him…but how can you be so sure? You barely know him and you keep completely throwing yourself into this confidence."

Hermione looked down, her curls swinging against her cheek, "I just believe in him, Ron. I know that he's good, I know it. He is troubled, and I just feel that I have to do something. I have to save him."

Harry did not even think before he spoke without really knowing the meaning of his words, "Or are you destroying him?"

Hermione threw Harry an odd look. Before she could reply, however, there came a swift knock on the door.

"Dumbledore?" mused Ron, but Hermione shook her head, "he would have used floo…"

Harry slowly approached the door, opening it just a slit and peering out before cautiously opening it wider. In the threshold of the doorway stood Rufus Scrimgeour. Pushing the door open wider the leonine Minister limped briskly into the house.

"Harry Potter!" he boomed, "I was wondering if you were willing to take a short stroll with me in the garden, official business and all. Don't worry Molly, Arthur-" he addressed the adults who had just arrived in the door to the sitting room, "we'll just be out in the garden. No need for worrying, we'll be back soon."

After careful promises and wary assurance on both sides, Harry and Scrimgeour moved outside to speak. Hermione slipped away from the clamor of the Weasley household as they realized Percy was there as well, and found herself in her own haven that she shared with Ginny. In only a minute she had lost herself in a book and her own thoughts.

Meanwhile, while Harry assured Scrimgeour that he was Dumbledore's man through and through, he noticed a now familiar face in the upper window of the house looking down. Blaise Zabini had been carefully watching.

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song lyrics are "i can feel your pain" by manchester orchestra

**i have had over 60 views on this chapter and no reviews. :( **

**am i doing this right? wrong? criticism is desperately wanted. **

**thank you all! **


	14. fourteen

**note**: first of all, i am incredibly sorry for the delay! i had a lack of inspiration for awhile, and coupled with a busy life and computer problems- an update really wasn't an option. however! here is chapter fourteen. thank you very, very much for everyone who has read this story, and especially everyone who has reviewed- it really means a lot to me and it is always the highlight of my day when i see a new one! i know i'm a whiny brat about getting them, but come on- who can blame me? they are an author's best friend so if you're feeling generous you know what to do. anyway onto the story.

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**Fourteen**

_you seep in the windows and vents. i lay in the grass and I lose your scent.  
if god gave me grace, then why aren't a graceful?  
my joints are frozen, cold, old, and idle._

_if it's by air then i don't want to know  
if we all don't take cover we're all gonna fall back in love again_

Dumbledore had come and gone, Blaise had slept- or at least, pretended to when he knew the old man was watching him from across the room. He knew Dumbledore was not fooled, but he'd rather try than give up what he had gained. He still felt sick and felt as if he were constantly falling into a febrile state, unable to breathe or move but consumed by ghosts.

Blaise, in all honesty, did not even realize if he were actually still injured with whatever curses had been thrown upon him or if his constant agitations of his mind were keeping him a prisoner. Yet whatever the cause is he was most assuredly afflicted. And so in this way Blaise spent his holiday in a sort of haze, broken only by Hermione's frequently growing visits. Whenever she spoke to him everything became a little clearer, and that pain in his chest grew a little bit more. She was the words he couldn't find when Harry or Ron would stare, she became the dream he wanted to fall asleep to.

On New Year's Eve, Hermione was sitting quietly, alone, and surrounded by her books. She had been increasingly quiet lately, pouring over books in search of an antidote, a cure, or even just some relief for the boy. He was consuming her mind, and a slow but persistent fire started to creep up along her bone marrow- scorching the inside of her heart, of her head. She urged to take apart that unrelenting throbbing at the door of her chest, to discover what it was that made his voice so painful to her.

The more it hurt the more worried Hermione became. She had always been a scientific thinker, an analyzer. Yet with each throb deep in her chest she began to doubt her logic. Hermione breathed heavily as she poured over the texts before her; her mind never fully concentrated on the material. She just kept replaying over and over again the moments in the library, in the hallway before the train left, on the shore of the lake.

Completely engrossed in her thoughts, Hermione did not notice at all when Harry came in to sit by her. He carefully laid a hand on her shoulder to alert her and slowly began to speak,

"Hermione, I trust you completely. You know that. And I just want, I want you to be safe- you know that too," he ran a hand through his already disheveled hair, "but I wanted to tell you that whatever you do, I'm fine with it. You know that he watches you, right? And I can't stand seeing the way you look at each other and doing nothing to help. But I think we both know that it's up to you, to help, and to know what you need to do. For yourself."

Hermione looked at Harry confusedly, his speech was muddled and she really did not realize what he was referring to, but then again- he did not either. For at that moment Harry Potter had unwittingly played the serpent.

Later that night Hermione found herself visiting Blaise again, retracing the steps to his dark room she knew so well. They sat alone in silence for some time, as they always did, till Hermione found herself striving to find something to cover the penetrating quiet around them.

"I used to believe, you know," she softly began. Blaise turned his head to watch her in the fading light, everything about her was soft in that moment, he later recalled, even her usually fiery eyes were imploring him with such a soft gaze, "I used to think that God was present in every ray of light, in every sparkle of water in the sun. I would watch sunbeams light up the day and the moon slowly snatch it away, watch a ray burst into a thousand pieces. I believed so strongly that God was covering the earth in a thousand showers of spirit every time that sunbeam hit the earth. And then, I found magic and the destruction that came with it. And I just, I cannot understand how humans could wield powers they said only God could, and how they could cause such pain with a flick of wood and I just…" she trailed off, biting her lip she looked down at her lap.

Blaise felt a spark in his chest quickly shoot up to his throat. Everything she said everything the way she moved he couldn't breathe he couldn't…suddenly he started to cough again, a hacking sound that seared through the pregnant stillness.

Startled, Hermione immediately poured a glass of water from the pitcher on his nightstand and held it to his lips. Blaise watched her carefully over the rim of the glass. He swallowed, and again Hermione held the glass back up. The boy took another sip, and carefully closed is eyes and leant back against the pillow. Both of them breathing heavily, for different reasons, sat together in the room for sometime, waiting for the death that crept up Blaise's heart and into his throat to turn into life again, to turn into light again.

Finally Blaise spoke softly, "I'm cold, Hermione, I'm so cold all the time…I can't find anything any warmth and I'm just, so cold," he shivered and opened his eyes slowly.

Without thinking Hermione climbed into the small bed and wrapped herself around the boy, allowing him to slowly grow warm in her embrace. As he slowly drifted into sleep Hermione pondered the situation she had brought herself into. Carefully she extracted one arm from under the weight of the boy, pausing slowly to allow him to settle. Finally she began to examine carefully his face. His long eyelashes pressed against the hollow of his cheek, the once warm butterscotch skin turned to a paler sickly shade. His lips, full and dry were opened slightly as he slowly breathed. Shaking, Hermione slipped one finger into her mouth, moistening it softly. She drew the finger carefully to the lips of the boy, finally running the tip of her finger over them lightly. A searing and urgent paint swept into her lower stomach, similar to when he had kissed her desperately in the hallway. Hermione was logical, without a doubt, but she was also a Gryffindor- and so bravely she lowered her lips to his own.

Suddenly she was not afraid, and his eyes instantly snapped open- searing indigo into honey. He stirred against her and emitted a low groan. Their torsos met, frantic and urgent, hot kisses reigned down singing into his cold skin and her warm flesh. He was now moving, and Hermione felt a spark alight when she felt him against her thigh. And then together they moved, fumbling and pressing and anything but rational.

What followed was so quick, his fingers so hot and fumbling on her flesh, and when he found his way to her and Hermione felt a shock of what she did not know was pain or pleasure and at that moment she did not care. She just wanted to _feel_ and to move and he was pushing and suddenly there was nothing but him and a light she suddenly found- one that was both anything unlike and completely like God as she had ever felt. And in that moment Hermione felt that this could not be wrong, because even in its haste there was something so heartbreakingly perfect. She felt sullied, she felt at peace.

"_O rose, thou art sick_," Blaise whispered into her ear as he moved against her, "_the invisible worm that flies in the night in the howling storm, has found out they bed of crimson joy._"

"_and his dark secret love_," Hermione interrupted, "_does thy life destroy_." As they fell apart into a thousand pieces, Blaise was reborn and Hermione born for the first time- both given a second chance at life. And into the night as he lay across her flesh clutching onto her as if to slip into the abyss again, they found each other whispering a hundred more things to the other, a hundred more ways to keep the other from their fear and their regret.

"_our state cannot be severed; we are one, one flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself_," whispered a voice before both fell into a dreamless, but peaceful, sleep.

everything was beautiful

and nothing hurt.

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song lyrics: "coca cola" by brand new. "o rose thou art sick.." is the poem 'the sick rose' by william blake. "our state cannot be severed.." is from john milton's paradise lost. 'everything is beautiful and nothing hurt' is a quote by kurt vonnegut

again, thank you for your time & patience. and as always **review**! :)

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	15. fifteen

**Fifteen**

_please pose my skeletal remains give them a working pen and i will live forever._

_please let them love me though i fade, i__ know you want to run away_

Hermione had an idea. Since the night they spent together, Blaise had been recuperating greatly. He was quickly healing, and already he began to look healthier than he had in months. There were only a few days left until they returned to Hogwarts, however, and Hermione knew she was running out of time. On Sunday morning Hermione made her way cautiously to Blaise's room. Taking him by the hand, she led the boy carefully down the stairs of the house and out onto the street.

"I wanted to show you something," she began to ramble, "and well, I don't think that we could really apparate because it's in Muggle London and I was planning on walking to the station, it will only take twenty minutes or so, and then we can take the train but I hope that is fine with because you're still sick and you need your rest and you've never really taken the Muggle train have you and—"

"Hermione," Blaise gently cut in, "it's fine, it's fine. We can walk. I'll be fine."

Biting her lip, she nodded, and carefully slipped her hand into the boy's dark smooth one again, leading him down the sidewalk towards the train station. As they walked they talked about the sunlight and school and the cold and a thousand other things that don't matter until you have nothing and everything to say.

They moved like ghosts against the cold, slipping through stations and trains and the sun again, Hermione watching the way Blaise's indigo eyes followed the quick movements of the Muggle behavior, the way he would sigh occasionally and lean back against his seat and press his palm more firmly into her own, pressing their two fleshes together as if in prayer.

It was an escape, bounded and sheathed and protected from the infinite. It was the sweet solidarity of unfamiliarity, the grand triumph of hollow exertion. It was everything and nothing and for Hermione it was only now and for Blaise it was forever.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Hermione stopped before the massive history of stone that lay before them. She turned towards Blaise, his impassive face raking in the gothic tower.

"Blaise, this is Westminster Abbey. It's a Muggle cathedral." She watched nervously as he continued to stare, "I, I didn't know if you had ever seen one or not. But I thought, I thought you might like it. Just to see what Muggles had created for God. I just thought that you might feel closer here, you might feel safe." When he turned to her and smiled, there was such a look of trust on his face, more than she had ever imagined possible in a human. Even Harry or Ron had never looked at her like that- like the world could shatter at any moment and he would still stand there holding her hand.

When they entered, Blaise felt as if they had stepped into a different dimension. It was completely silent, and all around him all he could see was light. It was pure, undiluted light- such vivacity only imagined in unknown fantasies, it was the permanence of completely impossibility. Hermione only watched Blaise's face as they walked down the nave. Suddenly they were standing before a rose window, and a wave of blue and red washed over the pair, striking colours against he marble of the floor, and washing undulating patterns against their skin.

Puffed chest, trembling knees all fell apart. Blaise felt as if he were shriveling before forever. Breathless and overwhelmed, Blaise quickly found himself outside again. And suddenly he knew, he understood, that maybe God was not the omniscient protector he had once believed. Perhaps God was just that beauty, that ineffable beauty he saw in the windows and the light and Hermione's eyes and the sky at dawn, and perhaps the only proof that he needed was the feeling of the sunlight against his skin, the sound of music pouring from the cathedral's walls. And then Blaise knew what that pain in his chest was, and when he leaned forward to kiss Hermione; he did so without feeling sullied, without feeling rushed.

As he pulled back from her skin, from her beating heart, he murmured softly into her ear, "My darling of overcast eyes, what have you done to me?" He had found his own words for once. Blaise felt redeemed, he felt safe. And there in the courtyard of a pinnacle of history, Blaise felt inexplicably near god, for he felt near love.

--

Harry squirmed uncomfortably in his chair. He was seated across from Dumbledore, who kept his hands folded, his eyes twinkling, and a smile on his face. The silence was growing to be overwhelming. Harry began to pick uncertainly at a spot on his robes. Dumbledore had asked if there was anything else he would like to discuss with him, and Harry struggled to find a way to mention the strange actions of Zabini. Finally he broke down.

"Sir," he paused uncertainly, "do you think it's possible to talk to well, the dead? I'm not asking about myself. It's just there's someone that I've met recently and I've noticed him talking to himself sometimes, only he's addressing someone whose gone."

"Ah," Dumbledore nodded and settled back into his chair before peering over the top of his half-moon spectacles, "I presume you are talking about our Mr. Zabini. I too have realized that he sometimes appears to be communicating to Theodore Nott, a student you may have known. But it is my belief, Harry, that the mind has a way of deceiving us when we are in pain. To create illusions of what we want more than anything, and that we are unwilling to realize we have lost."

"You mean, that it is all an illusion in his head?"

"Just because it is happening inside his mind, Harry, does not mean that it is not real. It is sort of a phantom limb, a missing part that he still feels. Mr. Zabini has been going through quite a bit of anxiety lately, and I understand that Ms. Granger has become well acquainted with him. I advise you to help, if you can, but to let this mystery unfold on it's own…"

As Harry made his way down the staircase from Dumbledore's office a few moments later, he kept replaying the brief but odd conversation he had held with Blaise nearer the beginning of the year.

_There are many more things in the world. It's just filled with memories, that's all. A scrap yard for broken memories. The leftovers, the ones no one wants anymore, the ones you erase when you tear your photos, the ones that creep into your dreams and leave you sleepless for another night._

And he remembered more, he remembered before Zabini saw him. _It's getting hard to breathe_. And it was, it was for Harry too. He felt as if he were choking, as if he were becoming asphyxiated by the memories of someone else, by the ghost of Tom Riddle. And Zabini was right, Harry too thought things were going to get much worse.

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Oh hello! I am very sorry that I have not updated this in so long. First came all that University acceptance mania, then came major computer problems and switches (that caused me to lose this chapter I had already written :(), finally exam week. It has been busy! But here you go, if you care, chapter fifteen. I'm sorry it's so short, but they always are. Also, I don't know if anyone is interested, but I've been tossing around some more story ideas. A few more Blaise/Hermiones, because I love them so. Also I've been thinking about a Tom Riddle/Hermione one. Thankfully it's the summer soon so I'll actually be able to write a bit without realizing I have a lot of actual work to do. Soo. Yes. That's about it. As always, please please please please PLEASE review. It really means a lot, I can't even tell you!

credits just go to brand new, lyrics are from what is mainly known as 'untitled 9'


	16. sixteen

i am really sorry about the delay, i had already written this chapter and the next, but they were lost when my computer died. i was so frustrated that it took me ages to get around to trying again. also, if anyone is interested i recently just put up a first chapter to another story. it's another blaise/hermione but it's very different. so yes! sorry sorry sorry, and check that out if you want.

also: thank you so much for the people who have reviewed. the ones for the last chapter were really incredible, and i cannot begin to explain how much they mean to me. thank you all, really.

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**Chapter Sixteen**

_the pleasure part, the after shock, the moment that it takes to fall apart. _

_the time we have, the task at hand, the love it takes to destroy a man. _

_the ecstasy, the being free, that big black cloud over you and me. _

_and after that, the upward fall and worry angels after all_

Coming back to Hogwarts for Blaise and Hermione was much harder than it was for Harry. They had to settle with rushed meetings in dimly lit hallways, in forgotten corners of the library, and the ever-useful Room of Requirement. But Blaise had to deal with the ineffable silence of Slytherin. He was already a skeleton to the rest of the house, but coupled with the infamous events of the break, he was nothing. Those who thought they knew the more detailed account of his vacation also knew that they could not touch him at Hogwarts. The only one who actually knew what had transpired was Draco, and Blaise was troubled to find that he hardly ever saw the boy. When he did, Draco slipped between shadows. He was a pale fragment of who he was, deteriorating faster than Blaise was.

Draco never looked Blaise in the eye. Only once their gazes met, and two hollowed souls clashed across an empty room. But Blaise had found a hallowed redemption, and Draco had no one.

Blaise felt lost in the massive corridors of Hogwarts, he felt poignantly and intangibly lonely. Even when he was with Hermione, he still missed her. _At least I can breathe again_. But there was still a lack of something, and Blaise felt an aching for when he still had his disturbed mind conjure the ghost of Theo for him.

It was afternoon, dusty light filled his eyes. He sat, waiting for Hermione in the library. Even among a crowd of people he was still a ghost, still alone. Frustrated, the boy pulled out a blank sheet of parchment and a quill. There was an ache in his chest, he felt the sombre need to pour himself into ink and words scribbled out in a laboured serenade.

_You could have been my gospel_, he scrawled, _a holy centre dedicated to the colour of your eyes and the rise and fall of your chest. A hundred thousand words and metaphors for the way you close around me, the shapes your fingers bent into me. You are my biblical tome, my fallen empire, my epic poetry- a storm tossed man, am I. But I can never find the perfect words for the way you have opened and closed me, the way your lyrical breath pours chords over my skin, turning it into another sin. Here I settle for something less, for a broken collection of words; just as you settled for a darker version of me I did not want. Now there are no more words to compose you into a bolero, and seven deadly sins that stretch you away from me_. _because between grief and nothing, I will take grief._

He paused, unsure. Because that feeling was love, to miss someone more than you notice their presence, to feel torn apart by it, to feel drowned by the words he twisted for her. Blaise felt a million things at once, an acrobat, an emperor, a philosopher, a demon, god; and all in all he felt that he simply did not exist.

When Hermione arrived he kissed her quickly, as if she were about to disappear in front of him. He could feel her slipping away, subtly, physically, disappearing into a thousand bursts of sunlight and a million specks of dust. With every tangible grasp of her he felt more whole, more complete. She could save him with a single touch and destroy him with a hundred more.

"I want to run away, to swindle our desperate minds somewhere where I can breathe without restraint, where we can melt away into constellations and the rust of the night sky, where we can resist our mortality" he murmured into her neck.

"Why do you always speak in metaphors?" she replied, drawing back somewhat.

"You're the logical one, you can spin me with rhetoric but I will always return to a half formed simile," he sat away from her, studying her. She blushed under his gaze, "Is there anything new?" he questioned.

She sighed, "I wish. I know that this is hard for you, but do you know what's been going on with Malfoy?"

"I barely see him. It's as if he's fading away, I know that something is happening. Why, what have you discovered?"

Hermione shook her head carefully, chewing on her bottom lip in thought, "Nothing. Harry just overheard him talking to Crabbe, apparently he's been using lookouts to conceal his activity. It's just, we don't know what he's doing. I don't…I just am not sure if he's directly connected to V-Voldemort. I know that he was there in December when you were hurt, I just…he's so _young_."

Blaise sighed, spinning his quill between his long fingers, "I know. I'll try to keep an eye out, but I really don't exist in Slytherin anymore. I barely exist at all outside of it. But I will try."

Minutes passed as they sat there, trapped in the amber of the moment. Soon they parted, and a single sheet of parchment fluttered out of Blaise's materials as he swept away from her. It rested, silent, a yellow stain against the sea of the carpet. Hermione picked it up carefully, recognizing the scrawling hand immediately. Her careful analytical eyes swept over the swelling lines quickly, digesting. Suddenly, without warning, Hermione Granger fell in love

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lyrics: the night starts here by stars. 'between grief and nothing i will take grief' is from the wild palms by william faulkner. "trapped in the amber of the moment" is from slaughterhouse 5 by kurt vonnegut please review ;)

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	17. seventeen

i always have to apologize for how long it took me to put this up, but i really am sorry. i promise that this story (which only has a few more chapters) will be done by september. anyway, thank you all so much for reviewing- i honestly can't explain how much it means to me. also this new reader traffic thing is pretty sweet, it's awesome knowing that there are people all over the world reading this. thank to to everyone, honestly.

but keep reviewing, i'm greedy. it sucks to see almost ten thousand views and less than 50 reviews, to be honest. help me out!

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**Chapter Seventeen**

_well i wrote your name and burned it, see the color of the flame,_

_and it burned out the whole spectrum as if you were everything,_

_im just burned gold, a normal flame,_

_i am not anything,_

Blaise Zabini really did enjoy wandering the halls of Hogwarts. He felt at peace there, _he could breathe here_. Which was as the term quickly began to spin out of control, Blaise found himself spending his time roaming the cold walls and exploring each shadow concealed nook that lurked in every corridor. Hogwarts was his home; at least, more home than the cold mansion where he was permitted to grow up by his overbearing and overwhelming mother. He could disappear fully here, become another luminescent shadow of the carved past.

Blaise was hot, always so febrile in a way he couldn't explain. He burned in every way possible; his pain seared through his heart creating a chasm within himself into which he was slowly disappearing. Blaise knew the source, _Hermione_. She had come into his world bursting with fire and spreading light in every dark spot within him. Yet the pain he felt as he watched her as she bit her lip; the shooting sparks in his heart as her hair tumbled across her exposed collarbone, pale and freckled as she moved beneath him. He felt exposed, torn open. Love was a horrible feeling.

It wasn't that he wanted to stop loving Hermione, but loving her was the most painful thing he had ever felt. Each glance thrown from her was ten times the pain he felt under the Crucio curse. _People don't love because it feels good_. He didn't think that he could stop loving her, no matter how heavy it got, no matter how his sides burned and his chest ached at that ineffable beauty. Love had exposed him; pulled back his flesh and let him simmer under the scrutinizing gazes of every passer-by. He swore he could set the world alight with a single thought of her smile. She was his destruction; his redemption; his prayer; his curse.

Absentmindedly Blaise traced a pattern on the cold stone next to him. He remembered a myth he had read in which male and female were one soul until split apart. _Perhaps that is all that love is_, thought Blaise, _searching for your other half_.

He felt inexplicably heavy, weighed down with the burden in his chest, nursing the weight as if it were a child. Blaise sunk to the floor of the hallway in defeat. Closing his eyes, he wrapped his mind around the presence that had tortured him for so long. The boy raised his head to meet eye to eye with a seated Theo.

"It's been a long time, Blaise."

He smiled, "I think…Theo, I think that I haven't needed you, have I? You're in my mind after all"

"In a way," Theo paused thoughtfully, "you have sort of created me because you needed me. You can't raise the dead, Blaise. But I came to you through memories and your absolute _need_ for another soul to help you unburden yourself. The only way I could help you was to let you fall, to find another to help you. Not myself."

"Hermione," Her name rolled off his tongue like water in the mouth of the desert. Sandpaper throat, stuck shut pried open.

Theo smiled softly, "Hermione."

"Were you ever in love, Theo? It really is unbearable. It is like a fire is smouldering me, caught among the smoking ashes as a lingering reminder of warmth. It eats whatever was left inside of you, when I was broken I thought I had nothing left. But now I feel consumed. Vulnerable. Have you ever felt that Theo?"

Blaise looked around for the memory of the boy who had once been his best friend, who had once pestered him from within his own mind. He was alone. There was a whispered goodbye, a flutter of mourning against praying lips.

His solitude was suddenly broken by a burst of wand light. Looking upwards through the dim glow, Blaise could see Harry Potter standing before him, invisibility cloak in one hand and a decrepit parchment in the other.

"I don't think this is the first time I've found you mumbling to yourself in a hallway, Blaise."

Blaise ignored the question, instead focusing on his own, "How long have you been there? And how did you find me?" His eyes travelled to the parchment hanging from Potter's wand hand. Through the glow he could just make out a map of Hogwarts and two still dots labelled with their own names. He smirked, "I've always wondered how you three were able to sneak around so easily. Nice cloak, too."

Harry smiled wearily and sat down beside the Slytherin leaning back against the cold stone, "I saw you talking to him, to Theo. I can't see him," he said quickly at Blaise's incredulous face, "but I can tell. And I can see how you miss him, the memories in your eyes. I understand," he looked sincerely at Blaise, "and I know how much you love her."

Blaise twitched, "Are you in love with the Weasley girl, Harry?" he gazed seriously at the other boy, awaiting his answer expectantly.

Harry shifted, "To be honest, I don't know. I feel more for her than any other girl, certainly. But love? I think I'm not ready yet. I'm…"

"Afraid," Blaise finished for him. Harry nodded mutely.

"What's going to happen, Blaise?" he asked after a brief pause, "I'm expected to save the world, you know? And I have to, I have to kill Voldemort. Not because anyone told me so, but because I couldn't live if I didn't. So I've made my choice to walk into the arena with my head up, because if I'm going to die I want to be proud of what I managed to do."

In that moment the two completely understood each other, remaining in a companionable silence for some time. Each were thinking of two very different things from the other, though perhaps they weren't all that apart. There would be a moratorium, a brief unbearable pause. Then both would return to where they had come, to face the next day, to face the future of a world predetermined by a self-fulfilled prophecy, to face the girl who could simultaneously asphyxiate and relieve a broken boy._ Love and war are often the same thing._

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lyrics are untitled one by brand new. the male/female myth was inspired by a passage in "the unbearable lightness of being" by milan kundera

p.s. i wrote this very late and didn't have a chance to edit it while there was that weird log in glitch. so if you saw one of the many mistakes in this chapter, i apologize! it think i finally caught them all now.


	18. eighteen

**note**: hello, hello. hmm i think this is a rather speedy update for me, so i dunno be impressed! since blaise got to explain his thoughts in the last chapter, i thought that this should be hermione's turn. also ginny gets a chance to speak, since they talked a bit about her in the last one. on this story though, i think i've only got about two chapters or so left in me...just so you all know. also i have another story up called il principe, which is another blaise/hermione but much lighter.

also, thank you so much for the people who review. i honestly cannot tell you how much it means to me and how happy i get when i see them. i honestly have no idea what i'm doing or if people are actually reading this story or hating it- so for those people who take the time to explain that i'm doing okay it's the greatest thing. i love you, thank you. anyway onward:

* * *

**Chapter Eighteen**

_you are my sweetest downfall; i loved you first , i loved you first_

_b__eneath the __stars came falling on our heads, b__ut they're just old light_

Hermione lay quietly in her bed, cheek pressed against the cool fabric of her pillow. It was late and she couldn't sleep, kept up by too many thoughts of the past. It was almost silent save for the soft breathing of her roommates. Shivering, she pulled the blanket up to her chin and snuggled down deeper into the sheets.

Hermione realized suddenly that she was so achingly lonely at the moment. She missed Blaise's arms around her and him whispering into her ear, as soft as butterflies on her skin. Hermione extracted one hand from beneath her pillow and clasped it tightly with the other, pretending that it wasn't her own hand that she was holding, but the hand of someone who loved her, _Blaise_.

Hermione never expected any of this to happen. But suddenly she had been caught up in his tangled web, dark and layered and beyond her control. Until she met him she had carefully structured her life. She was neat, light and airy. And now there was a heaviness growing in her, an insatiable feeling that only increased when she was with him. It felt like she was slowly dying, slowly being asphyxiated by the pains of her own love.

She could remember a time when things were clear and organized. Every struggle that Harry got into there was a way out; she could foresee the ending. She always had the feeling that things would be okay, that things would work out. She could see the stone being saved, the basilisk being defeated, the dementors retreating. Even now she knew that Voldemort would be destroyed one day, she believed with her whole heart that Harry would defeat him.

But now there was a growing uncertainty in her. Where she used to understand the outcome, to believe in the logical path, she was now confused. Hermione's head was tangled up in too many beliefs; in the logicality of life twisted unbearably together with the dark doubt of faith. She had begun to believe in too many things. She believed in a godless universe where we make our own choices, where we find our own destiny. She believed in a universe shaped by the hand of a creator who gave us each a special force. She believed that love was overrated and didn't exist; she believed that love was the most painful sensation she ever felt and that she would surely die from it. She believed in lies and truths, she believed that life was meant to be about structure and she believed that she was happiest when she was confused in Blaise's metaphors.

Hermione felt an aching sadness in her, a desperation that grew hungrier with every moment. _Why is this so painful? _She kept thinking. Hermione had never loved before, not like this. There was the deep loyal love she had for Harry and Ron, the kind of love where she would do anything for them. That was a fiery love, burned by such fierce loyalty that smouldered within her. There was the love she had for her parents, a soft sort of love…one that ebbed and flowed over time. But this love she had for Blaise was like a dull ache that seared into her chest. Whenever she touched him or saw him or thought of him it flared up and became almost unbearable.

It was a very different kind of love, one that made her notice everything that she would never have discovered before. She noticed the way he always held his wand, as if it would shatter in his hands at any second. She noticed the way he walked, a loping grace that allowed him to blend with the shadows. She noticed the way that whenever he was confused he would run his fingers through his hair and ruffle it gently. She noticed the one darkest curl on his head that fell into his eyes. She noticed the way that when he lied he blinked. She noticed the veins in his hands, the specks of indigo in his eyes, the hunch of his shoulders, the curve of his hip, the fall of his chest, the way his hands would play a chord down her spine.

Hermione sighed and turned over onto her other sighed. Picking up her wand, she gently murmured "_Horus_," and glanced at the shimmering red light that hung motionless in the air. 2:37 A.M. She felt restless, her bones twitched with the ungrateful feeling of wanted to spring free and collapse into the night. It was too late though and Hermione forced her aching limbs to remain motionless and wait out the morning, to try to sleep without being distracted by memories and the thought of yesterday, and to not allow discarded dreams to sneak up on her and haunt her again.

Suddenly, Hermione heard the door to her dormitory creak open and shut again, and soft footsteps pad over to her bed. "Hermione?" whispered a girls voice. Hermione drew back the curtains to reveal Ginny Weasley standing uncertainly next to her. Ginny smiled and climbed inside to sit on the foot of her bed. Hermione drew herself up so that she was sitting, back propped up against the pillows and knees crossed. Casting a silencing charm around them to not awake Lavender or Parvati, Hermione turned her attention to the other girl, "What's wrong, Ginny? Can't sleep?"

Ginny nodded, "I see you can't either. I just…I think something's going to happen soon. I can feel it coming."

"Me too," Hermione agreed, "It's a sort of restlessness, you know? A calm before the storm."

Ginny ran a hand through her dark red hair nervously, "Are you scared?" she whispered after a pause.

Hermione shook her head, "Not really. I think, I think that we will be okay. And that whatever happens will create a thousand new beginnings. I know that this will be hard and that terrible things will happen, but we'll just have to rebuild. It will be a new star born out of a dying one. I think that it will be beautiful after the fall. No, I'm not really scared."

"I am," Ginny whispered softly.

Hermione reached out and took the other girls hand in her own. Biting her lip she asked, "Are you in love with Harry, Gin?"

A sort of fire gleamed in Ginny's eyes as she nodded, "I know it sounds stupid, but I've loved him as long as I've known him. At first it was just this awful crush, I was so caught up in his fame that I could barely speak around him. But after seeing what he's accomplished, seeing his kindness, his perseverance, I've always loved him," she paused uncertain for a moment, "But I don't think, I don't think that he loves me. Not exactly, not yet. I think he's too wrapped up in Harry, he always has been. He has to be, you know? To defeat Voldemort. I know that he'll do something stupid and noble, but that's just who he is. And that's _why _I love him, and that's why I'll wait."

As she spoke she had drawn herself up, and Hermione thought she looked so effortlessly beautiful and graceful in that declaration of love. And just for a moment, Hermione wished that she could have that same type of love that burned in Ginny, an effortless and clear love. But then she remembered the tangled fire of Blaise and such a burst of pain and love seared before her that she stopped breathing for a second and Hermione knew that the could never be anything else, there could never be anyone else.

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lyrics are "samson" by regina spektor


	19. nineteen

authors note: of course, thank you to the people who have reviewed. it means so much to me :) to promote my other stories, check out il principe.. a more lighthearted blaise/hermione. i also recently just posted a small one shot entitled passing afternoon (bz/hg), and the first chapter to a tom riddle/hermione story called the wandering rocks, that will really pick up after this is over. which, speaking of, it almost is. i think there is just one chapter left to go... so hang in there. anyway, onward to nineteen.. which i hope is satisfactory.

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**

_drink up baby, look at the stars. I'll kiss you again, between the bars _

_where I'm seeing you there with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught_

_drink up one more time & I'll make you mind. keep you apart, deep in my heart._

_separate from the rest here I like you the best. & keep the things you forgot. _

_the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore_

_that push and shove and won't bend to your will- _

_I'll keep them still. _

Hermione ducked as a blast of green light destroyed the wall behind her. A cloud of dust hung heavily in the air, remnants of ancient walls shattered into a thick haze. In the distance she could see bursts of light careening through the air as Death Eaters met the small legion of students and teachers. Flashes of colour rained in the air like fireworks; all around her Hermione could only see destruction. At that moment though, Hermione could barely concentrate on the scene around her. Her thoughts strayed far from Harry departing hours earlier with Dumbledore, from the arrival of the Death Eaters led by Malfoy. All she could think about at that moment was _Blaise_.

Knowing him, he had been wandering the castle when it had been invaded. Hermione just wanted to make sure he was okay, that he had not been hurt, that Malfoy hadn't found him. Peering through the haze around her, Hermione leapt to her feet and darted down the corridor, skidding past yet another spell that crashed into a suit of armour behind her. _Without the felix felicis_…

Determined not to think about it, Hermione focused on finding Blaise. She ducked into a small alcove behind a tapestry and caught her breath as she leaned up against the wall. She closed her eyes as screams echoed in the distance. Quickly, she pulled herself together and examined the Marauder's Map, eagerly scanning it for his name. Finally she found it: fourth floor, Blaise Zabini and approaching him down the hall was the name Hermione dreaded seeing near him…Draco Malfoy.

Hermione stuffed the map into her robes and sprinted down the corridor, up a staircase. As she neared the top, however, the staircase began to move away from its landing. With determined resolved, Hermione trusted herself to the air and leapt. She fell on the cold stone, and a sharp cry of pain echoed as blood began to drench the sleeve of her robe. Stumbling to her feet, Hermione began to run again- ignoring the throbbing shoots of pain.

Finally, she found herself in the fourth floor hallway. Blaise was bent over, clearly nursing some sort of injury as Malfoy raised his wand again and aimed it at the dark haired boy leaning up against the wall.

"No!" she shouted, causing both boys' heads to snap towards her.

Malfoy smirked, "If it isn't the Mudblood," his voice dripped with venom as he pressed the tip of his wand into Blaise's throat, "So this is the reason why you wouldn't join us, Zabini? You refused power and your loyalties for a stupid Mudblood bitch. Everything you had."

"I have no loyalty to you, Malfoy," Blaise spat, "She _is _everything I have." Hermione walked determinedly towards the pair, her own wand clasped in her shaking hand and aimed at the blonde Slytherin.

"Hermione, don't" Blaise's steady voice warned. The two locked eyes, and Hermione silently acknowledged his warning. Pushing himself up against the wall slightly, Blaise looked the other boy in the eye.

"Why are you doing this, Draco?" Blaise questioned, "You know that Voldemort will give you no actual power, you know he has little regard for your life. You know this. Which is why I think that you're nothing more than afraid."

Malfoy's eyes flickered and his outstretched hand seemed to droop slightly. "You don't have to do this, Draco," Blaise continued, "any of it." He stressed meaningfully.

Malfoy sneered, "You have no idea what you're talking about, Zabini." He pressed his wand against Blaise's throat once again, "You don't…you don't know what he'll do…" he trailed off uncertainly.

In that moment, Hermione realized that Blaise was right- Malfoy was afraid. It was more than whatever Voldemort had threatened him with. Draco was simply afraid, filled with too many doubts and uncertainties that were clouding his mind. But he was unable to fight off the demons that viciously berated him. Draco Malfoy was nothing but a coward.

In the split second that they all hesitated, another figure burst into the hallway. "Draco!" Hermione turned to see Snape looming at the end of the corridor, "It's time." Malfoy's eyes darted back and forth between Hermione and Blaise. "Leave them!" Snape snapped and the boy quickly ran over to his side.

"Professor!" Hermione exclaimed desperately, "Don't you see? He's a Death Eater! The Order…"

Snape sneered at her before wrenching up his own left sleeve, "You stupid girl," he spat loathsomely. Hermione stared wide eyed at the ominous stain on his forearm, the dark skull standing out from his white skin. In the next moment, he had grabbed Malfoy and they both disappeared.

Hermione stared after them in shock, before finally turning her attention back to the boy pressed up against the wall. Slowly, Blaise lost his balance and finally slumped to the ground. In an instant, Hermione was at his side.

Blaise laughed slightly, "We seem to find ourselves like this quite a bit, don't we?"

Hermione smiled endearingly down at him, "What happened?"

"It's nothing," he assured her, stroking her cheek with the back of his palm, "your arm is bleeding."

Hermione shrugged, "It's nothing. Blaise I…" she paused, "I really do love you."

He smiled and traced a pattern into her cheek. In the midst of a battle with their world crumbling down around them, they felt no fear of the desperate future that lay ahead of them. A few minutes later, somewhere in the distance, Hermione heard the faint words _it's over!_ Shouted across the grounds. Lifting her head off Blaise's chest she whispered, "Did you hear that?"

The two rose to their feet and moved towards the empty quiet where there was once a battle. Silently, the two walked hand in hand as they surveyed the damage, the cracks in the once stable foundation of their world, the destruction of what had held all of them up. Soon they encountered a streak of red, and Ginny's terrified face who told them _Hospital Wing_ and said nothing of what had happened, nothing about what had been destroyed. Her white and stricken face though told enough. The world seemed to slow down around them, and Hermione felt an ache in her throat.

The air was thick and without Blaise's hand guiding hers she would have been lost behind. It felt surreal, an out of body experience. She barely registered Harry's voice when he told them all that Snape had killed their guardian. The only thing she could clearly feel was the tightening of his hand around hers, and the soft melodramatic cry of a phoenix as it flew through the ravaged castle and shed tears upon the vicious cracks. And then McGonagall had reminded them all what Dumbledore had preached for so long: what made this world a little more bearable, and the only thing that would allow them to survive now was love.

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lyrics are "between the bars" by elliott smith


	20. twenty

**authors note:** this is it! the end. finally. its been almost a year.. i can't even believe it. sorry it took so long to get up, but uni just started and well.. freshers week. you know how it is. i have such a headache. but anyway! thank you so so much to everyone who has been with me this entire time, it means so much to me. this is especially dedicated to 'bubbles' just since she took the time to read and review EVERY chapter, and all my other stories. it is really incredible! so thank you. and thank you all. :)

sorry this is short, but i just wanted it to be nice and neat. enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Twenty**

_what are you holding out for? what's always in the way? _

_why so damn absent-minded? why so scared of romance?_

_this modern love breaks me_

_this modern love wastes me_

The morning of the funeral had been alarmingly beautiful. The grounds were calm after the storm that had torn through and the world lay silent save for the speeches that soared across the crowd. There was a stillness in the air as Blaise surveyed the crowd around him. It was as if a weight had pressed down on all of them, filling them with heaviness of what had come before. Potter was clutching his knee tightly as unwelcome tears found themselves in his eye. Weasley was stoically determined, jaw set firmly as he looked out towards the marble tomb. _And Hermione…_

Hermione had pressed her wet face into the crook of his shoulder, and her palm folded around his in a quiet prayer of comfort. Blaise suddenly realized that his own lap was scattered with tears he didn't even notice fall. It was in that moment that the complete understanding of what had happened hit Blaise full force. He felt his heart stagger under the knowledge that they were entrenched in a war; that the only person that had kept Voldemort at bay was dead; and that the thin threads of their world had unravelled.

But as Blaise felt Hermione move against his shoulder, he felt a soaring lightness in his chest. The simple knowledge that he loved her and she loved him would be enough, even if he had nothing else. It was enough. It was a feeling of being infinite, a feeling of unbound emotion. She was eternal, at least for him.

So he let her go. He let her rise up and walk over to Harry and Ron standing apart on the grass. He watched their shadowy silhouettes grow long on the grass as the noon sun hit their backs. He watched them decide to leave and to fight. When she came back to him he felt his heart falter. _She would leave_.

As she approached him he stretched out one hand to welcome her back. She took it, smiling softly as tears continued to slip down her face and trace patterns in her flushed skin. He watched as one hung delicately on her long eyelash, another micro detail that caused that ache in his chest to flare up.

"You'll be leaving with Potter," he told her matter of factly.

She nodded, "But I'll come back. I will always come back," she spoke with a quiet dignity in her voice, a determined resolve.

He kissed her forehead gently, "My life was saved the day you came to me," he murmured against her skin. Finally he turned away and inquired softly, "What do we do now?"

Hermione turned to face the scarred castle with a hard fire in her eyes, "We fight. And we'll have to rebuild it, you know," she declared determinedly.

"We always arise from our own ashes," Blaise reminded her quietly, "we all return later, in each of our changed forms."

Hermione turned towards him once again, and both felt comforted by the sight of their own emotions on the other's face. In that instant, Hermione knew that everything would be beautiful in the end- for there was still love in the world.

**fin.**

* * *

lyrics are this modern love by bloc party.

thank you!


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